1. We get Condi, but only in return for an agreement never to pester the WH again

2. We get Condi, but only if Cheney and Bush get to testify in secret together without even a tape recorder running.

Now forgive me if I am wrong but they are not going to get to the bottom of this story with a couple of hours with Condi.

Unlike the dimson she is not altogether flaky and likely to be briefable... she will be almost certainly given advance warning on likely lines of questioning if not from Kean from her pal Zelikow. And the format of these hearings is such that nobody seems to be put under any pressure anyway.

But the rest of this deal is the real giveaway.

Basically it is game over here people. The end of the road for this train...

The upcoming June NatCom hearing which was to have been an in detail look at what happened on 9/11 itself is now changing into something else. My guess is that the in house stooge - Condi's pal Zelikow - got a bit blindsided by the Clarke excitement, somehow the commission has been convinced that digging too deep is not in its best interests.

Secondly the conditions set for Condi's testimony. Basically that this is as far as you are allowed to go with the White House have pegged off the upward path of investigation. This leaves only more investigation into lower levels of incompentence which are not sexy enough to keep the heat on.

And then finally there is the real kicker in all this - the strange case of Clarke himself.

Admittedly this scheme seems a little too clever even for Rove, but what if this whole Clarke vs Condi game has been played exactly according to script?

I am not suggesting that Clarke is part of any cover-up but could he perhaps have been used for a greater game. Bottom line - this whole week of events fits perfectly a limited hang out game plan... Bush pleads guilty to something we already knew he was guilty of, playing 911 up in order to invade Iraq. And in return Clarke's heat cauterizes the rapidly festering 911 truth sore.

Condi was always the most obvious target for Clarke supporters to focus on, she was his boss. All she had to do was make BS excuses and refuse to appear until the media crescendo reached a peak... then suddenly the wall comes down. Kean gets a victory with her testimony and the rest of the commission rolls over and gets a nice scratch on the tummy...

Meanwhile over here at 911 truth central - aka DU - we too are all so excited with our apparent victory that we miss the fact we have just had our lollies whisked out from under our noses.

... about the way it will play out. The only way it would not be as you suggest is if Rice opens a new line of inquiry that requires the commission to request someone else from the White House, say, Scooter Libby. The only option available would be for the commission members to jointly believe that such testimony was so necessary that they abandon the deal with the White House and issue a subpoena--something they have yet to do in the commission's tenure.

So, it simply doesn't seem likely. Even if Roemer and Kerrey blindside Rice and Zelikow by asking Rice questions not previously discussed in the private conversations of commission members, she only has to vacillate and obscure to end that debate--she won't be coming back again. Republicans on the commission will likely try to steer the questions back to the reason for her public appearance under oath--to refute Clarke's assertions of the administration's culpability.

As Daniel Ellsberg has repeatedly said in the last few months, it's time for the whistleblowers to come forward. There are people in government now who know, intimately, why events turned out as they did.

As Daniel Ellsberg has repeatedly said in the last few months, it's time for the whistleblowers to come forward. There are people in government now who know, intimately, why events turned out as they did.

***

Of course it would look a bit stink if none came forward and lets face it they would have to be fairly brave...

Sibel Edmonds went public last week with her press conference because she had been waiting for the commission to follow up on her leads and they'd ignored them entirely. (And the families gave Zelikow a list of whistleblowers they wanted to have called to testify, and he's ignored nearly all of them.)

The damn thing is, when 9/11 whistleblowers do come forward, they're largely ignored by the mainstream media, or blown off as "crazy." I'm afraid it's going to take something like a senior figure giving away the game for them to think there's something going on here.

Who I really want to hear from are the air traffic controllers, the pilots, the witnesses in Florida to Atta's time at the flight school. All of them have been intimidated and told not to speak.

The 9/11 issue is never going anyhere -- LIHOP/MIHOP is all un-provable, and not the logical conclusion of this investigation -- again, IMHO.

The power of Clarke's testimony seems to focus liek a laser beam on the poor choices made post 9/11 -- even moreso than the inaction prior to 9/11 -- Clarke himself says that he can;t be sure 9/11 was preventable.

The weakening of our defenses through the expensive blood and treasure vaccuum of the illegal, unwarranted, and otherwise unnecesary Iraq fiasco.

Clarke's most damning allegation is the neglect of the war on our true enemies so that more focus could be placed on Bush's vendetta and/or oil ambitions.

THAT is where the damage to the adminstartion is going to come from.

No one can argue there was not a march to war inthe face of worldwide protests, international complaints, and the perpetual pleadings to give the weapon inspectors more time. One need only open a pre-iraq newspaper to find any number of articles.

9/11 started this, but 9/11 is not the entirety of it, and politically, at least, 9/11 is the least important.

14. I think this is the interesting thing. Cheney is there to protect Bush

If every one does not see who is running the govt. they are really blind. Rice is a Bush lap dog. He seems to need these mothering women around him and father Cheney running things. Rice never did her job for the US, she kept Bush happy.Since Clinton was geering up to see bin Larden was really trouble Bush and Co made that unimportant. Clack most likely saw that and his ego was hurt and this is a great way to make money and do the right thing. Put it out. O'Neill, and Woodward have already said just about the same.Now I am sure that the GOP knew the score on just what is going on and most Dem but who wants to yell it out and it has to be a real job how to keep your own job.

I just about fell out of my chair tonight when AWOL said almost word for word what I said he'd say last week. It's not what these fuckers do that surprises me so much...but the predictability of it and the fact that they consistantly pull it off in spite of its predictability. What depresses me is that what I believed to be transparent and predictable is not to most folks...even the ones here on DU...as is evidenced by the fact that anyone on this board would take "the Commision" their innaction or actions for anything more than they are. A Rovian machination, intended to mollify suckers.

Look at how many times the BushCo peeps have tried to derail it (even when the commission has shown no interest in getting at the REAL truth of 911). Where are all the questions about NORAD's inaction, air traffic control chatter (on 911), those mysterious stock options for UA/AA, the Phoenix memo, ties between Cheney's energy task force & the Taliban, who ordered the 'stand down' of interceptors, etc etc etc. Until I hear someone seriously bring up one of these topics, I will continue to believe that 911 will forever remain a conspiracy, one that even dwarfs the assassination of JFK.

but that's because i think bushco is the symptom and not the disease.the disease is made of folks we don't see -- and it's their work that bushco carry's out. pnac is part of it. corporate facism is another part{i.e. pipelines, pentagon contracts, etc}they had clarkes book for a long time -- they must have seen SOME of the train wreck coming and planned for it.

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